[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 172 (Wednesday, December 12, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2257-E2258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            BIPARTISAN TRADE PROMOTION AUTHORITY ACT OF 2001

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, December 6, 2001

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I commend the diligent efforts of Chairman 
Thomas, my colleagues and their staff members in drafting and 
sponsoring H.R. 3005, the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act of 
2001.
  H.R. 3005 is being referred to as the most environmentally and labor 
responsive legislation regarding Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track) 
to be sponsored by the U.S. Congress. However, I share the concerns 
raised by many of my constituents that H.R. 3005's labor and 
environmental standards do not go far enough to ensure a level playing 
field in our proposed trade agreements.
  H.R. 3005 refers to environmental and labor provisions as negotiating 
objectives. Our trade history reveals that during the past 25 years 
including labor rights, and now environmental rights, as ``negotiating 
objectives'' do not guarantee that these provisions will actually be 
included in any proposed trade agreements. The geopolitical and trade 
landscape has changed, of the 142 members comprising the World Trade 
Organization (WTO), 100 are classified as developing nations and 30 are 
referred to as lesser-developed nations. Why is this important? It is 
important because with China's accession into the WTO, the 130 nations 
will become more forceful in promoting their trade agendas, and an 
opportunity for a more favorable trade agreement becomes apparent if a 
nation lowers its environmental and labor standards. Many nations' 
standards are sub-standard at best.
  As drafted, the overall negotiating objective of H.R. 3005 is to 
promote respect for worker rights. My constituents report that the 
worker rights provisions do not guarantee that ``core'' labor standards 
are included in the corpus of prospective trade agreements. By core 
labor standards, I refer to the International Labor Organization's 1998 
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work: freedom of 
association, the right to organize and for collective bargaining, and 
the rights to be free from child labor, forced labor and employment 
discrimination, which many people throughout the world are confronted 
with.
  My constituents are troubled that H.R. 3005 does not require a 
signatory to an agreement to improve or even to maintain that its 
domestic laws comport with the standards of the International Labor 
Organization, in practice an incentive is created for lowering them. 
Among H.R. 3005's principle objectives is a provision entitled labor 
and the environment, which calls for the signatories to trade 
agreements to enforce their own environment and labor laws. The United 
States, as a leader in the global trade community must set the example 
by raising the labor and environmental standards of its trading 
partners. In the end, it will be the United States who is called upon 
to provide the resources to clean-up environmental disasters.
  Through their first-hand accounts, my constituents report that 
workers in many nations that we seek to enter into bi-lateral and 
multi-lateral trade agreements are subjected to exploitation, 
harassment and worse for exercising their rights to collective 
bargaining, and are forced to work under abusive conditions. For 
example, in our own hemisphere more than 33% of the complaints filed 
with the International Labor Organization's Committee on Free 
Association originate in the Andean region. I understand that new labor 
laws in Bolivia, Ecuador, Columbia and Peru undermine the right to 
collective bargaining, and there are scores of reports from NGO's 
regarding unconscionable violations of the most fundamental rights for 
workers and their union representatives. The AFL-CIO reports that since 
January 2001, more than 93 union members in Columbia have been 
murdered, while the perpetrators have gone unpunished.

[[Page E2258]]

  How the United States engages in trade negotiations and its practices 
are crucial not only for our future, but for our democratic process. 
How our nation conducts itself is scrutinized world-wide, in essence, 
we must set the right example. Events at the recent World Trade 
Organization negotiations in Doha, Qatar have made this fact even more 
apparent. The WTO is seeking to adopt a worldwide ``Investor-State 
Clause'' in the next round of discussions. This clause was written into 
Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the 
purpose of protecting businesses from expropriation by foreign 
governments. What it has been used for, however, is completely 
different from its originally stated purpose.
  Cases such as Methanex v. United States and its progeny are 
dispositive of harmful effect of the unbridled power of ill thought out 
provisions of trade legislation. Methane, the producer of MTBE an 
additive used to make gasoline burn cleaner, was leaking from a storage 
tank and into the water supply in California. Governor Davis acted 
promptly, and after further testing banned MTBE. Methanex, a Canadian 
Corporation, brought an action against California/United States in July 
1999, not in our courts, but pursuant to NAFTA's Chapter 11 foreign 
investor clause. According to William Greider's October 15th article in 
The Nation, ``under this provision a foreign investor can sue a 
national government if their company's property assets, including the 
intangible property of expected profits, are damaged by laws or 
regulations of virtually any kind.'' Greider further reveals that 
Methanex, through its Washington D.C. powerhouse law firm, used 
tribunal established through NAFTA, where the proceeding are secret 
(unless the parties agree to public disclosure).
  Greider goes on, ``As nervous Members of Congress inquire into what 
they unwittingly created back in 1993, critics explain the 
implications: `Multinational investors can randomly second-guess the 
legitimacy of environmental laws or any other public-welfare or 
economic regulation, including agency decisions, and even jury 
verdicts. . . . the open ended test is whether the regulation 
illegitimately injured a company's investments and can be construed as 
tantamount to expropriation, though no assets were physically taken.' 
''
  This Chapter 11 case and many others like it are now pending and/or 
being heard before these arbitral panels. Methanex is seeking 970 
million dollars. This is an outrage and an assault on our legal system. 
To add insult to injury, the drafter of the provision, now in private 
practice, readily admits that it was an intended consequence of NAFTA, 
rather an unintended consequence as most people believed it to be.
  All cases finalized thus far have been either judged in favor of the 
business interest or settled out of court. The end result is a direct 
subversion of the right of people to protect from polluters the air 
they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat. In effect, 
this clause allows the democratic processes we hold so dear to be 
subverted.
  Mr. Speaker, we must seek out ways to make trade compatible with 
conservation of the environment and by adhering to core labor and 
environmental standards that are both incorporated into the body of a 
trade agreement and enforceable.

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